


Breaking

by atlanticslide



Series: Just Keep Breathing [2]
Category: Hollyoaks
Genre: Break Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:15:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlanticslide/pseuds/atlanticslide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes him a while to notice that anything is wrong.</p><p>Not that there’s anything <i>wrong</i>, exactly, just…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rilla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rilla/gifts).



It takes him a while to notice that anything is wrong.

Not that there’s anything _wrong_ , exactly, just…

-

“We could go out tonight, what do you think?”

John Paul doesn’t look up from the computer screen in front of him. “It’s Thursday.”

“So?”

“So, I’ve got work in the morning. And so have you.”

“…So?” Craig laughs, a little, as he paces back and forth in front of the couch.

“So we can’t be out ‘till all hours,” John Paul replies, then looks up from the computer when Craig doesn’t reply. “I mean, if _you_ want to go out…”

Craig considers that for all of a moment before shaking his head and coming to slouch down on the couch next to John Paul. “No, no, it’s fine. You’re probably right, bad idea.”

-

“You ever think about moving back to Hollyoaks?”

“ _No_ ,” Craig answers immediately, without looking up from the TV. Reed takes a pass from Jarrett and brings it over to the far side of the pitch and shoots it and – 

“YES!” Craig leaps up, fist pumping in the air, and jumps over the back of the couch so he can sprint around the room, cheering all the while.

He nearly runs right into John Paul, who is still standing, placid, next to the couch. He’s not yelling or cheering or spinning around or anything he normally does after a goal.

“What – ?” Craig begins, then remembers John Paul’s question from a moment ago. “What, Hollyoaks?”

“I dunno,” John Paul shrugs. “I was just thinking about it.”

“Why?” Craig asks as he throws himself back down onto the couch, making room for John Paul to come and slouch down next to him, leaning his shoulder against Craig’s side. Craig takes a pull from his beer and settles his arm across John Paul’s shoulders and thinks, _this is the life_.

“‘Cause we’re watching Chester,” John Paul replies, taking a sip of his own beer.

Craig rolls his eyes so hard his whole head tips backwards. “Why are you thinking about _moving to_ Hollyoaks?”

John Paul is quiet a moment, staring down at his bottle, but Craig’s only half looking at him, mostly staring back at Danby blocking a shot on the screen in front of them.

“You never miss it at all? Your family, The Dog…?”

“Miss Mum’s screeching and Darren’s being an idiot and living with a half-dozen other people in a tiny flat above the pub?” His eyes track the ball across the pitch, back and forth from Lindfield to Jarrett to Linfield to Reed, Reed takes a shot – it goes wide. Reed throws his hands up over his head. “No thanks.”

He turns to look at John Paul fully. “What, you want to go back there?”

John Paul shrugs against him and takes another swig of beer. “Not really. I dunno. Just miss my mum and my sisters sometimes.”

He looks sort of distant and Craig worries for a moment that maybe this is serious, that he really _does_ want to move back to that tiny, loud, village full of nutters and bad memories that Craig spent years desperate to leave. They both had, back then.

“Really. You miss that mental house full of your mental sisters and your mental mum and all the general… mentalness?”

John Paul laughs at that. Craig smiles in return, pleased. 

“No, no, you’re right. Perhaps I’m getting nostalgic in my old age or something.”

“Well _that_ certainly calls for another beer.” Craig reaches to grab one and then kisses John Paul on his temple when he passes it to him.

-

“We’re going for drinks after work, come meet us.”

“Who’s this ‘we’?”

“You know, James and Freddy and Jess and – ”

“ _Oh_.”

“John Paul.”

“Go on without me, I’ve got some work to do anyway.”

“She’s just a coworker.”

“It’s fine, Craig.”

Craig pauses, mobile clenched in his hand, as he swallows hard and then releases a long sigh, hoping John Paul will hear it.

“Fine,” he says, and hangs up, sick of John Paul’s jealousy and unwilling to entertain it tonight.

He waits for John Paul to call him back, to apologize and agree to come meet them at the pub near Craig’s office, but he never does.

-

“You dragged me all the way out here to look at a house?”

It’s cold and it’s getting dark and Craig is getting crabby. 

“Not just _any_ house,” John Paul says, way too enthusiastic for this gray, bleak day. He grabs Craig by the arm and pulls him in close. “Could be _our_ house.”

Craig looks at him. “Our house.”

“Sure! I mean, it’s a bit shabby, yeah, and maybe a little small, but the price is pretty good, we could afford it. Y’know, probably. With maybe a little help from your family.”

Craig looks back from the house to John Paul, dubious and ready to shake his head at this whole silly idea already.

“I know, I know,” John Paul cuts him off before he can open his mouth. “But it’s not like my family has any money to speak of, the lot of them. If we needed to be helped out with like… knockoff leopard print stockings, they’d be the ones to go to, but I think Jacquie’s probably got about five quid to her name and Mercy, well – don’t think things are going to work out so well with Riley – ”

“That’s not the problem,” Craig interrupts before John Paul can get too far off track. “I thought we were looking for a new place to rent, not buy.”

John Paul pulls him a bit closer to the little house, which is looking more and more grungy and dilapidated as he stares at it and as John Paul speaks.

“We’ve been renting for years,” John Paul says, turning to look back at the house, his eyes tracking over it and to the yard around it and the little garden that someone’s planted by the front steps. “Don’t you think it’s time to, y’know, take the next step an’ all that? Buy something of our own. Invest in some property.”

“I don’t think this is the kind of place you _invest_ in,” Craig says dubiously, eyeing the windowpanes which he can practically see rusting as he watches.

“Well, that’s why it’d make for a great opportunity!” John Paul’s enthusiasm is undeterred. “And wouldn’t it be great to have a bit more room, a little yard. Might even have a fireplace.”

“How d’you think we’d afford it, though?” Craig’s doubt won’t be deterred either. “I don’t really have any savings even to start with, and neither do you, judging on how much you spent on football tickets last month.”

“Hey, that was a worthy cause,” John Paul reprimands him lightly, smiling, with a finger poking at Craig’s chest. “It’s not every day you get to sit midfield, third row. And we’ve got that thousand we’ve been saving, that’d be a good start.”

“That’s supposed to be for the Ibiza trip.”

“So well go to Ibiza another time then,” John Paul says, throwing up his hands like _Craig_ is the crazy one here. “C’mon, Craig, just think about it. We’ve talked about staying here permanently. If we’re going to stay in Dublin, shouldn’t we start putting down some roots?”

And no, they haven’t really talked about staying in Dublin permanently. Just that they won’t go back to Hollyoaks, but that’s not the same thing. And if he’s honest with himself, Craig wouldn’t mind just picking up and going somewhere else for a bit – not right now, because he’s just gotten a promotion and he likes the people he works with and he’s comfortable there, but he likes knowing that he _can_ , that they could whenever they might want to, and that would all change if they put a down payment on a house.

And he doesn’t _want_ to go to Ibiza another time; they’ve been talking about it for ages already. But John Paul’s eyes are wide and bright, his whole face looking hopeful and eager with the barest hint of a grin tugging at him, and Craig finds himself saying, “Alright then, we’ll _think_ about it,” because he can’t quite stand the idea of saying no to John Paul like this right now.

-

And okay, so Jess is hot. So what? It’s not like he doesn’t still notice girls, not like he’s not still into them just because he’s been in love with a guy for years. He can’t just flick a switch and turn it off, and probably wouldn’t even if he could – he _likes_ looking at a nice pair of tits, at long legs and soft thighs and trim waist and long hair. And Jess has got all of it and more.

So yeah, Craig’s looked. ‘Course he has. But it doesn’t mean anything. He’s not going to run off with her or have some sort of affair with her or do _anything_ with her. He loves John Paul – he doesn’t care much for flat chests and muscular thighs and day-old stubble on any other men, but he wouldn’t swap any of it out on John Paul. Everything about John Paul turns him on, even after years of being together and learning every inch of one another’s bodies. And all horniness aside, John Paul is his best friend in the world. He’s funny and dry and serious about things and he understands what Craig’s saying when no one else does and no one else could ever compare.

Of course, John Paul will never listen to any of it, so Craig never says it out loud, even as John Paul gets increasingly weird about Jess.

-

“Can you remember to pick up some eggs?”

“Sure, but I’ll be working late.”

“You will?”

“Yeah, I told you about it last night. Got a meeting that’ll run into the evening.”

“Alright then, I’ll get the eggs myself. See you later.”

It’s their only conversation that day.

-

“It’s getting late!” John Paul has to shout into Craig’s ear to be heard over the music.

“It’s only half past twelve!” Craig shouts back after a quick glance at his watch. He takes John Paul’s hand and tries to pull him in closer, get an arm around his shoulders, but it’s Friday night and the club is packed with people and it’s getting a bit hard to move. It’s loud and it’s sweaty and Craig’s loving it, after the long week he’s had.

“I’m tired, Craig,” John Paul replies, his steps faltering. Craig can see it, how tired John Paul is – getting up near five in the morning for work will do that – but he’s sure if they just keep the pace up John Paul will get his second or third wind and Craig’s not ready to go home and crash just yet, which he knows they will if they leave now.

The pace of the music picks up and Craig moves along with it, uncaring how bad a dancer he is. He misses the days when John Paul was DJing and he’d look out across the dancefloor right at Craig and all of Craig’s self-consciousness – about dancing stupidly, about how badly dressed he was compared to everyone else, about how cool he wasn’t compared to everyone else, about John Paul looking out across the dancefloor right at him – all of it would just disappear like it never was even there. He can dance now without that _look_ from John Paul that he used to get, that gaze that wasn’t much different from how John Paul’s looking at him now, eyes heavy-lidded and warm, except that it _is_ different, somehow. Craig doesn’t need John Paul to look at him that way, but he misses it all the same.

“C’mon, you love this song!” Craig shouts, wiggling his hips back and forth, which makes John Paul laugh.

“I do,” John Paul smiles at him, and finally there’s a break in the crowd enough that Craig can press up closer, wrap his arm around John Paul’s back and press his mouth in close to John Paul’s ear, John Paul’s mouth close into Craig’s.

“But I can listen to it on my iPod,” John Paul continues, breathing the words now into Craig’s ear as they continue to move together to the music. “At _home_.”

Craig presses his hand more firmly into John Paul’s back and gets their chests pressed together so that when he moves his upper body John Paul is moving with him. They’re rocking, back and forth, quick-paced to keep up with the music, and it feels way too good to let it go right now. Their legs are tangled together and John Paul’s got one hand wrapped around the back of Craig’s neck, his fingers smoothing back and forth across Craig’s sweat-damp skin. It’s the closest they’ve felt in weeks.

“This is good right now,” Craig says, almost a confession. He darts his tongue out to swipe at John Paul’s earlobe and then presses his nose into John Paul’s temple, enjoying the feel of John Paul’s answering shudder against him and not caring who can see. It’s almost sort of a thrill, to know that no one cares about them kissing in here, just like anyone else.

“Could be even better at home though,” John Paul breathes heavily into Craig’s ear. “I could make it worth your while.”

That’s a tough offer to pass up, but Craig’s getting hard already and really doesn’t want to move from John Paul’s embrace even to get home and get naked together. It’s been a good night and he doesn’t want it to end so quickly, even for a fuck. Especially not a quick fuck, as it’s sure to be.

He pulls back just far enough so that he can give John Paul a leering grin. “Make it worth my while right here.”

He’s serious about it – no one would really notice how much they could get up to right here, and there’s always the toilets. At least to start something now that they could finish off later at home would be a pretty sweet deal.

But John Paul laughs like it’s a joke and gives him a small shove.

“Come on,” he says, and starts to turn away from Craig. “Let’s get out of here.”

He begins picking his way through the crowd and Craig follows after him feeling more defeated than aroused now.

-

“Come for a run with me!”

“You’re always asking me to come. Has my answer ever changed?”

“I keep hoping this’ll be the time you change your mind.”

“Why would I want to go jogging when I’ve got a perfectly nice couch for me to lie on right here?”

“Maybe you’d be more up for it if you hadn’t been out drinking until four this morning.”

“John Paul, you’re nagging.”

“No, what I’m doing is trying to get you to get up and do something for a change. Something other than going out and partying.”

And with that he storms out, leaving Craig looking after him, confused by the sharp change in mood.

-

“Time to head out, I think.”

“It’s barely nine.”

“I’ve got a splitting headache and papers to grade before I get to bed, which needs to be in about an hour.”

“So go on, then.”

John Paul stares at Craig for a moment, his eyebrows rising slowly.

“You’re not coming with me?” he asks, glancing from Craig to Jess and Freddy beside him, who’ve gone suspiciously quiet.

“Well it’s not like you need me to walk you home or something,” Craig replies, taking a sip from his pint. He knows he’ll be in trouble for this later, but why _should_ he have to leave just because John Paul wants to? They don’t need to be attached at the hip.

John Paul’s mouth is tight but he doesn’t look mad so much as… something Craig can’t quite place. Before either of them can say anything, though, Chloe swoops in to sling her arm through John Paul’s.

“I’ll walk you home,” she says brightly. “You really can’t be too careful, bein’ out on the streets on your own.”

“And what, all those kickboxing classes you _haven't_ been going to are going to save us from muggers, are they?” John Paul asks her as they head towards the door arm-in-arm without a last glance back at Craig.

-

They don’t buy the house.

They decide (and if Craig’s really honest with himself, it’s more like he decides and John Paul comes around in the end) to sign a new rental agreement for another year on the flat they live in now, the flat they’ve been living in for the past two years. It’s a good enough place, really, close to Craig’s office and walking distance to some decent clubs and a good pub just down the street. Craig might’ve liked trying out a new neighborhood, maybe something on the other side of the city, just get a change of scenery, but.

It’s fine, really.

-

“It’s Jess’s birthday,” Craig tells John Paul, trying not to wither under John Paul’s angry gaze. Craig never withers, but he hates when John Paul looks at him that way.

“It was her birthday last week.”

“That was her actual birthday. This is her party.”

“Why does someone need two birthdays?”

“Because her birthday was on a Wednesday and she didn’t want to throw a party in the middle of the week.” Just good sense, really. He’s not sure why this is so hard.

“Didn’t stop you from going drinking together after work,” John Paul says tightly, his tone thick in that way it gets when he’s jealous. It’s a horrid tine.

“Don’t be jealous.” _Please, please, don’t be jealous,_ Craig pleads in his head but won’t voice.

“I’m _not_ jealous.”

“It’s not like it was some exclusive party. You could’ve come with us, I texted you where we’d be.”

John Paul huffs, an ugly imitation of laughter. “And watch her hang all over you and watch you stare at her chest the whole night? No, thank you.”

“Stop it,” Craig spits back at him. “She’s just a mate, she does not hang all over me.”

“Doesn’t stop you from staring at her though, does it.” John Paul folds his arms across his chest and squares his shoulders like he’s preparing himself for a fight. Which is a futile gesture, because they’re already fighting.

Craig puts his hands of his hips, mirroring the tension in John Paul’s body. “So what? So I check out girls now and then, who cares? Just ‘cause she’s fit doesn’t mean I’m gonna go trying it on with her. It’s not like you never take a look at other guys.”

“It’s _different_ , Craig,” John Paul replies, his voice getting dangerously close to shouting.

Craig beats him to it. “Just because _you’re_ insecure doesn’t make it different!”

“ _I’m_ the insecure one?” John Paul’s eyebrows raise up to about his hairline and it’s so insulting, Craig’s hands ball into fists. He wants to either punch something or storm out of here and he can’t decide which.

“What have I got to be insecure about?” Craig shoots back, even though he’s pretty sure he knows what John Paul’s going to say.

“After all these years,” John Paul says, pointing an accusing finger at Craig to punctuate every beat of his sentence. “You still can’t admit that you’re gay, even to yourself, so you have to drool over every girl who walks by just to – to _prove_ something!”

“You know that’s crap,” Craig tells him, so angry he can’t even yell. They don’t really talk about Craig’s sexuality much anymore. After a while it’d just started to feel like something that maybe just wasn’t so important. "They know I'm with you, so what's it matter whether I'm gay or straight or whatever? You're just looking for excuses to be upset and you know it.

John Paul still occasionally tends to use it as a cannonball when they fight, though, and it pisses Craig off to no end.

“Do I? You’ve told your mate Jess that you’re gay, then, have you?” 

“Oh for fucks sake, I can’t keep having this same fucking fight!” Craig shouts, throwing his hands up in the air. “I’m done, I’m done with this!”

He doesn’t mean anything in particular, doesn’t mean more than just this fight, right now, but John Paul looks stricken, his face falling as his eyes open wide and he takes a step like he’s been struck.

Craig’s stomach is churning, he’s breathing heavily and angrily and everything feels tense, but he forces himself to take a deep breath. He hadn’t meant done with the relationship, but it says something about John Paul’s current state of mind that he thinks things are this dire.

He doesn’t say anything more, unsure what would come out if he opened his mouth now, and instead just moves past John Paul to grab his coat by the door and then head out.

It’s only when he gets a few blocks away, with his hands shoved into his pockets and staring hard at the ground in front of him, that he realizes maybe things _are_ that dire.

He goes to the party anyway.

-

“Sorry,” John Paul whispers when Craig comes home from Jess’s party hours later. 

He’d spent most of the night drinking and talking football and trying not to think too much about John Paul, but it hadn’t worked so well. He still spent a good bit of the night mumbling morosely to whoever was sat near him about his relationship and worrying into his beer that something drastic and fundamental had changed between them when he wasn’t paying attention.

Now, though, Craig takes the olive branch tentatively offered up and sinks down into the bed to curl up behind John Paul and wrap his arm around John Paul’s waist. John Paul’s hand finds Craig’s and squeezes. 

“Me too,” he whispers back before pressing his face against the back of John Paul’s neck and inhaling the familiar scent of him.

Because the truth is, Craig doesn’t quite know what his life might be without John Paul. He doesn’t know how he’d survive it. So things can’t be that bad.

-

Still, he worries.

They haven’t been talking much lately, Craig realizes all of a sudden one day in January. Other than their discussing which bill needs to be paid or who’s going to buy the groceries or what time they’ll each be home. Or bickering. Or all out rowing.

It’s the fifth such conversation about nothing in two days that’s what makes Craig’s heart start beating faster, a panicky rhythm, when he realizes, _holy shit, we’re adults._ Bland, boring, adults, who talk about nothing but work and breakfast and grocery shopping and bills and repeat the same stupid arguments over and over and over again.

It scares the hell out of him.

“Oh, it’s perfectly normal to get into a little rut,” Chloe tells him, leaning back in her seat and waving off the notion that Craig should be worried about this when Craig confesses it to her one afternoon over coffee. Of the two of them she’s probably more John Paul’s friend than Craig’s, but she’d been desperate for the company and Craig had been desperate to say this out loud to someone.

“You really think so?” he asks.

“Of course! Happens to every couple.” She beams at him and for some reason it makes him roll his eyes.

“Why am I even listening to you?” he sighs. “You’ve never even been in a relationship that’s lasted longer than a month.”

“That’s only because I break it off when that rut hits. Can’t be letting my relationships get boring, now can I?” she grins. Craig’s not sure how he’s supposed to take that.

“So what, you’re saying I should break it off with John Paul?”

She sighs heavily at that and sounds put upon when she replies, “For fucks sake, Craig, of course not, I was joking.”

“You’re hilarious,” Craig deadpans.

“Like you’d listen to me anyway if I did tell you to break up.” She turns serious then, and puts her cup down so she can lean her elbows on the table between them and rest her chin on her hands. “Look, you two have been together for… well, a lot of years, right? Five?”

“Four,” Craig corrects her mildly, and takes a sip of his coffee.

“Right, well, four years is forever. You’re practically married already. Makes sense you’d start acting like an old married couple now and then, don’t you think?”

It’s supposed to make him feel better, he’s pretty sure, but all her words do is make his heart pick up pace again, that same panicky feeling he’d had the other day.

 _Like an old married couple_. He’s twenty-three years old, and he’s practically married.

He sort of wants to throw up.

-

“Did you drink the last of the juice?”

“There should still be a bit in there.”

“Yeah,” Craig grumbles, slamming the nearly-empty carton down on the kitchen counter while John Paul munches slowly on his cereal and watches. “A _bit_. As in, not even enough for a full glass. Why’d you put it back in the refrigerator?”

John Paul shrugs, and Craig can’t be sure he’s not doing this intentionally to wind Craig up. “Because there was a bit left. It’s no big deal, Craig, I’ll pick some up later.”

Craig sighs sharply through his nose and grits his teeth, forces himself to put that aside for now because he has other things to bring up before John Paul gets off to work.

“Remember my office party is tonight.”

John Paul freezes and then drops his spoon down to the bowl, looking instantly guilty.

“What?” Craig asks, dreading the reply he knows will be bad news.

“We’ve got rehearsals for the kids’ nativity play all this week.”

“Well,” Craig says, waving his hand and searching for how to fix this quickly. “You’re the English teacher, not the drama teacher. Why do you need to be there?”

John Paul stares at him, and Craig knows immediately that he’s stepped in it but he doesn’t quite know what he’s said.

“Craig, I _told_ you about this weeks ago, that I was helping out with the play.”

“And I told _you_ about this party days ago, and you didn’t say anything,” Craig shoots back, annoyed.

John Paul rolls his eyes. “Well, I’ve been busy. This may not seem as big and important as your… your finance whatever.” Because he never really pays attention to what it is that Craig does for work. “But it’s important to the students.”

“Do they really need you this one night, though?” And, okay, it’s not like Craig really needs him at this stupid office party, but it’s the principle of it all.

“I can’t just back out last minute.”

“It’s just one night, though.”

“Will Jess be there?” John Paul switches gears suddenly.

Craig is thrown. “What? ‘Course she will, she works there.”

“Well, then, what do you really need me for?” John Paul folds his arms against his chest and Craig wants to bang his head against the kitchen cabinets.

“Fucks sake, John Paul, why do you have to keep going on about her?” Craig spits out angrily. Maybe he sounds defensive but he doesn’t care. “There’s nothing going on between me and her, you know there’s nothing going on.”

“Because!” John Paul yells back in a burst. He pushes his cereal bowl away and runs a hand aggressively through his hair, staring hard at the countertop for a moment. He continues, a little more calm, “Because, we’re drifting. Feels like we’re drifting apart.”

Craig can’t think of a thing to say to that. He knows it’s true, he’s aware of it too, desperately, but he hasn’t been quite sure that John Paul has noticed it as well.

“Can’t you feel it?” John Paul asks softy, looking up at Craig then, his face full of something serious and sad as his mouth draws down in a frown.

“Yeah,” Craig replies, his tone just as quiet. “I can feel it.”

Neither of them say anything for a few moments. The air between them feels stale and empty, like a cloud of depression has dropped down on them suddenly. John Paul is staring at the countertop and Craig tries not to look quite at him, instead darting his gaze from John Paul’s hands clenched into fists to the wall across the room, over John Paul’s shoulder, where there’s a bit of paint peeling away.

“So,” John Paul finally breaks the silence. “What do we do then?”

“I’m not really sure,” Craig shrugs. “I guess… I guess I could skip the party tonight.”

“I’m not just talking about tonight, Craig.”

“I know,” Craig shrugs again, unsure what else to do with himself. “It’s a start, though, right?”

John Paul considers this for a moment before looking up at Craig and nodding. “Wouldn’t be _so_ bad for me to miss one rehearsal.”

Craig nods along as well. “Maybe we need to spend more time together? Alone, I mean. Time alone together.” _Because it sort of feels like we don’t really know each other so well anymore,_ he doesn’t say.

“Yeah,” John Paul says, without the relieved tone that Craig is hoping for. “That’d be good. We should do that.”

So they both call in sick to work and order in a pizza and spend the day in their pajamas playing games on X-Box and not saying a lot of things that they’re both maybe keeping in and offering up bouts of tight laughter, but it’s a nice enough day just to be together.

-

They spend Christmas at home, holed up in their flat, turning down invitations to parties and dinners and it’s nice enough, but still feels quiet. And not in the comfortable way where they’re close and connecting without having to talk much and other mushy stuff that Craig doesn’t usually like to put a name to.

They hover around one another, like they’re both afraid to step in the other’s space, as if one false move will mean stepping on toes or something. It’s probably the same reason they don’t say much to each other as well.

-

Craig waits for things to get better between them.

-

They fight more and more about little things like laundry and shopping and when to go on holiday and Craig’s seriously beginning to think that maybe they should just go on separate holidays when John Paul comes home with a bounce in his step and his face bright with excitement.

“I’ve got an – well, what I mean is, I’ve been thinking,” he says in a jumbled rush, darting around the kitchen to grab the kettle and mugs and tea and Craig’s feeling dizzy just watching him.

“You’ve got what?”

“I’ve been thinking,” John Paul corrects.

“Okay, you’ve been thinking what?” 

“Okay, okay.” John Paul flips the switch to turn the kettle on and then turns to face Craig, bracing his hands on the countertop separating them. “Okay. So. I’ve been thinking.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that bit.”

“Right, well. I’ve been thinking that we need to… _do_ something. You know, to fix this – whatever’s going on between us.”

“Alright…” Craig says, dubious. John Paul is looking far too excited, near on manic as he pulls up a chair to sit beside Craig. Craig’s not sure this is going to go well – but then, he’s got no idea how to fix things, or even what’s broken, really. So he lets John Paul take his hand and look seriously into his eyes.

“Let’s have a baby.”

Craig’s mind goes blank.

“Huh?” he says dumbly.

“A baby,” John Paul repeats. “I think that we should have one.”

It’s like he’s speaking Chinese all of a sudden.

“A baby.”

“Yes.”

Craig shakes his head, trying to make sense of this. “What on _earth_ are you on about?”

“Okay,” John Paul begins, barreling through a moment’s hesitation. He’s staring down at where he’s still holding Craig’s hand and runs his thumb over Craig’s knuckles. It does nothing to assuage Craig’s confusion. John Paul swallows and seems to be trying to gather himself. 

“I’ve been thinking about you and me and our relationship,” John Paul continues after a moment, slowly this time, as if all of the manic energy has suddenly left him. “About that drifting apart feeling and, well – it’s just that I’m. I’m sort of scared, Craig.”

He looks up at Craig then and Craig squeezes his fingers automatically, trying to urge him to go on and feeling a little sick at the thought that John Paul is so scared about their relationship that he can actually say so out loud.

“And so I’ve been thinking about what we can do, what we _need_. We need something to bring us back together, to connect again, don’t you think?”

Craig’s not so sure – or really, that sounds nice and all, but perhaps a bit too simplistic. But then, he’s not been quite sure what’s wrong with them either, so maybe that’s it after all, they just need some way to reconnect or something.

“And what better way to bring two people together than to bring a baby into the world?” John Paul goes on, his voice so full of warmth and intensity that Craig almost believes he’s right. “Start a family. Together.”

“Put down roots,” Craig says without really thinking about it, echoing something John Paul said some time ago. 

“Exactly,” John Paul smiles like Craig’s already agreed to it. He looks rather relieved and Craig hates to burst his excitement.

“John Paul,” he begins with a sigh, shaking his head. John Paul’s eyebrows draw down; he looks nervous and Craig rubs his forehead with his free hand. “We can’t have a baby.”

“Why not? ‘Course we can!”

“We don’t have all the right equipment, for one.”

“I’ve already thought of that,” John Paul smiles a small tip up of the corners of his mouth. “I’ve worked out the costs, and artificial insemination wouldn’t be too expensive.”

“Pretty sure you still need a girl for that,” Craig points out, hoping he’ll find a crack in here somewhere. He’s no idea when John Paul has found the time to do all of this research.

“Chloe’s already volunteered to – ”

“Chloe?” Craig asks, trying to hold back his laughter. “She’s about as fit to raise a baby as one of the kids on TOWIE.”

“Well she wouldn’t be _raising_ it, she’d just carry it and give birth.”

“And we’d raise it,” Craig replies, still trying to parse this all.

“Right,” John Paul nods.

“And… how exactly do you expect we’ll do that?” Craig leans to brace his arm on the counter beside him and drums his fingertips against it. He nearly pulls his hand out of John Paul’s grasp but John Paul keeps a firm hold on him. “Kids are expensive, you really think we could afford it? Clothes and – and babysitters and the like? And it’s not like we have loads of free time.”

“Well, I was thinking,” John Paul says slowly, like he knows how nervous Craig is growing. “I was thinking I’d quit my job. At the end of the term. You make enough we’d probably be fine on just your salary and I could stay home with the baby.”

Craig swallows and it sounds huge between them. His heart is starting to beat that panicky rhythm again and he’s sure that John Paul will be able to hear it. The whole conversation is sounding more and more like _marriage_ and _responsibilities_ and _adulthood_ and like Craig working himself to the bone to put food on the table for his family and he’s just not ready for that, he’s _not_.

“But you love teaching,” he tells John Paul as if it’s news, grasping for something.

“It’d only be for a few years,” John Paul replies. Craig tries to work out how sincere he sounds. “Just until the kid’s old enough for nursery school.”

His palms are growing sweaty. His fingertips drum faster against the countertop. He finally manages to pull his hand from John Paul’s and rakes his fingers through his hair, staring down at John Paul’s knees as he does because he’s not sure he can look John Paul in the eye right now.

“Craig,” John Paul says, quiet and firm. “I know, I know this is sort of a sudden idea.”

 _Crazy idea, more like_ , Craig thinks as he breathes out heavily.

“I just think it could be really good for us, you know?” John Paul continues, leaning forward to try and catch Craig’s eye. “Could be just what we need.”

And when Craig finally looks back at him, John Paul looks so serious about it, so sure, that Craig feels something crack as he begins to think, _maybe…_

“You think so?” he asks, and lets John Paul take hold of his hand again.

“Sure,” John Paul smiles softly, lacing their fingers together. “Can’t you just see it? Us with a little baby, our own little family.”

Craig can see the appeal in an abstract sort of way – that _is_ something he’d always figured he’d want someday. He’d just never really thought about it in a concrete, _now_ sort of way. 

But maybe _now_ really is the right time. Maybe you never know when just the right time is, maybe it’s normal to just decide to go forward on some arbitrary day while you’re still unsure about it, and people have kids for all kinds of reasons. John Paul seems so sure that theirs is a good one, and Craig’s feeling just a little desperate to believe it too.

He feels like he might be sick, but he nods and tells John Paul, “Maybe… yeah, maybe it could be good.”

John Paul beams, his whole face breaking into a smile. He grabs Craig by the back of the neck and pulls him in to kiss him, pressing their mouths and shoulders and chests and then just their whole bodies together, and Craig goes willingly, sinking into John Paul’s embrace and opening his mouth against John Paul’s and letting the feel of John Paul’s hands calm him. It’s strange, but things actually feel better already.

Later on, though, Craig will look back on this conversation and think that perhaps their making this decision in about fifteen minutes should have been a huge warning sign, with blinking neon lights and maybe a siren going.

-

John Paul throws himself into it all, and tries to drag Craig along with him.

He goes shopping and buys stacks upon stacks of books – baby names and child-rearing and best types of baby foods and how to prepare for your baby and on and on. They go to a clinic, the three of them – Chloe’s now included in it all, and Craig’s left wondering where this _togetherness_ between he and John Paul is supposed to come from if she’s always there with them – and they each wank into a cup and one of them is supposed to make a baby with Chloe’s egg, and the whole thing would be hilarious if Craig weren’t growing steadily more nervous.

They agree that they won’t find out who the biological father is, they’ll inseminate Chloe with both of their sperm and let nature take its course and they’ll both be the kid’s dads and Craig is _too young to be a dad_ and he’s going along with every step of this because John Paul keeps on talking and looking pleased and excited and assuring them both that things are going to be better, this is going to make it better, Craig will see, isn’t it great already, all the shopping and planning and picking out names together? And Craig can’t think of what else to do but nod along and offer up names like _William_ and _Allison_ and _Luke_ or hey, maybe _Tina_ if it’s a girl, after John Paul’s sister, all with this sort of detached feeling like they’re talking about a puppy or someone else’s kid or something.

And it is sort of fun, thinking up names, imagining teaching the kid to play football or ride a bike or reading to him or taking him home to see his mum and letting her fawn all over him. 

“Your mum will go absolutely mental when we tell her,” John Paul says, grinning, one day as they walk through a store looking at prams.

“Yeah,” Craig agrees, nodding and staring at one pram in particular and trying to picture himself walking along the street with a baby in it. “She’s got about eighteen people in that house and yet she always seems to be wanting more. I swear she just likes collecting kids.”

Another couple walks by them, a man and a woman, and the woman glances from Craig to John Paul and back again before they move on. Craig is suddenly hit with that old familiar pang, that nervousness that people are _looking_ at them, _staring_ , judging them, and he suddenly feels itchy and uncomfortable.

John Paul, of course, doesn’t notice, and instead looks down at the wheels on another pram and goes on about his mother and sisters and how he’s sure they’ll all come storming out here to visit them the moment the baby’s born, and Craig’s palms are getting sweaty again.

“Can I help you lads with anything?” a saleswoman asks as she comes over, smiling vacantly at them. “Are you looking for something for a friend, or – or yourselves…?”

“No,” Craig tells her shortly, and grabs John Paul by the arm to pull him out of the store.

“What was that about?” John Paul laughs as he stumbles a bit following Craig down the street.

Craig shoves his hands into his pockets and walks with determination, not looking up at John Paul or really anything. “She thought we were. Well. _Together_.”

“We are together,” John Paul replies, laughing again. He catches up to Craig and jostles his shoulder against Craig’s as they walk.

“Having a _baby_ together,” Craig grinds out through tensely gritted teeth, stepping away to put a little space between them. It hits him all of a sudden, what they’re going to look like with a baby in between them – they’ll be the _gay dads_ , the ones other people, their neighbors, will all talk about. People will see them on the street, walking along with a pram in between them, holding hands or something, and… and he’s starting to breathe faster as his pictures it.

“We _are_ ,” John Paul replies, all traces of amusement gone from his voice now. Maybe he’s caught on to Craig’s panic, and Craig would feel a bit bad about that if he weren’t, well. Panicking.

John Paul catches Craig’s arm and forces him to stop walking, to turn so he can face John Paul.

“What’s the matter?” he asks Craig, and Craig shakes his head quickly.

“Nothing, nothing, it’s fine,” Craig says in a rush, trying to turn away and keep walking, but John Paul keeps a firm hold of his arm.

“ _What’s_ fine?”

“Everything,” Craig replies, forcing a smile. “Everything’s fine.” He punctuates it by leaning forward to quickly kiss John Paul, hoping that’ll quell any doubts John Paul has, because they’ve been together too long now for Craig to still have these same old stupid fears.

There’s still a concerned furrow to John Paul’s brow, a tightness to his expression, but he doesn’t say anything more when Craig takes his hand and holds onto it as they continue walking.

He can do this. He’s sure he can. He has to for John Paul.

-

“If it’s just that you’re afraid of your child having two daddies, then you really should just get over it,” Jess tells him as they nurse pints after work.

“Right,” Craig sighs morosely as he stares at his beer. “You’re right, I know you’re right.”

Jess is quiet for a moment before she says, “I’m wondering, though, if there’s nothing else that’s making you panic.”

Craig doesn’t answer right away, instead taking a long swallow from his beer, gulping it like it’s water in a desert. He’s finally feeling a bit squiffy, which in turn makes the nervous ache in his chest ease just a bit.

“I’m not sure I want to be a dad at all, just yet,” he confesses in a quiet, harsh whisper.

“If you don’t want to do this, you have to tell him _now_ ,” Jess replies firmly.

“I can’t,” he tells her, taking another long pull from his pint. “You don’t understand what we’ve been through, me and him. If I tell him I don’t want this now, that’ll be it for us.” He pictures it briefly, losing John Paul, and shakes his head. Down either road lies fear and uncertainty, but at least the one he’s on has John Paul.

“Craig…” 

“It’s fine. It’ll be fine.” He stands, swaying a little, and leaves her behind at the bar, calling his name after him as he heads out to find someplace where he can drink alone.

-

He never does get around to telling his mother about the baby. He means to every time he speaks to her on the phone, but conveniently manages to find something else to talk about each time. He doesn’t speak to Jack or Debbie or any of the rest of his family about it either.

Maybe that’s strange, but John Paul doesn’t tell any of his family either so Craig tells himself that it’s okay they keep it to themselves for a while.

It’s fine, really.

-

The thing is, the baby _is_ giving them something to talk about and focus on, something for them together, which it hasn’t felt like they’ve had in a long time. 

“In the corner,” John Paul directs as they work out where the bassinet will go.

“But the speakers are there,” Craig replies, hands on hips.

“They can go in the other corner then.”

“The TV’s over there.”

John Paul rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, throwing his hands up. “So put them both there.”

“But the sound is really best when you’ve got the speakers around the room.”

“Maybe, but I think we can stand not to have perfect sound so our kid can have a place to sleep.”

“What if we move the table over by the window?”

“What about if we just move the TV out of here?” John Paul suggests, which is just absurd. “We’ve got one in the living room already, we don’t really need one in here too.”

“What about if we just move the baby of here?”

“Oh, and then we’ll just move _you_ out of here, shall we?”

“Funny,” Craig says with a smile, grabbing a pillow from off of the bed to toss at John Paul, who whacks it away with his hand, laughing. Craig loves that laugh.

He grabs John Paul’s hand then and pulls him forward so that they can both tumble back onto the bed and rolls them so that he’s on top. John Paul goes willingly, laughing lightly all the while and grinning up at Craig like the last few months have been nothing but bliss for them.

Craig leans down to kiss him, then moves to press his mouth against John Paul’s chin and then jaw and then bites down gently on the side of his neck.

“Won’t be able to do this anytime we want,” John Paul sighs as he brings his hands up to Craig’s shoulders, holding him close. “Once the baby comes.”

Craig pauses in licking up John Paul’s neck to look down at him and say, “No more baby talk for a while, yeah?” before he goes back to laying his lips against John Paul’s skin.

John Paul sighs, but not that sort of heavy, put-upon sigh that he’s done lately when he’s been annoyed with Craig; more, easy and happy, maybe, as he runs his hands up and down Craig’s back and tilts his head back so Craig can kiss down his neck. He hums, sounding pleased, when Craig yanks his shirt collar out of the way so that he can bite down on John Paul’s collarbone. 

Suddenly the hands that were at Craig’s back are now dipped below his waistband, and John Paul laughs when Craig lets out a quick shout as John Paul squeezes his ass and then moves one hand around to his front.

Craig moves back up to press his lips against John Paul’s and dip his tongue inside.

“Gettin’ right to the point, are we?” Craig smiles against John Paul’s mouth. He feels John Paul shrug against him in reply as he leans up and captures Craig’s mouth again.

“Fine then,” Craig says, grinding himself down against John Paul, against those tantalizing fingers that are working against his cock through his pants, and bites down _hard_ on John Paul’s throat.

John Paul groans at that and his hands stop moving just long enough for Craig to pull back and yank John Paul’s shirt up and over his head, followed quickly by his own. John Paul sits up and wraps his arms around Craig’s now bare waist, kissing across his chest. Craig groans when John Paul pauses to dart his tongue out across one of Craig’s nipples.

They get their jeans off quickly after that, somehow, before Craig can process it, and then he finds himself on his back with John Paul hovering over him and leaning down to lick against Craig’s lips and Craig’s hands are desperate to touch every bit of skin they can reach. John Paul works quickly against Craig’s lips, his neck, down his chest with a long drag of his tongue, before he presses his mouth wide against Craig’s stomach and bites softly at the skin there. Craig squirms a bit and John Paul smiles against his stomach and looks up at him as he shuffles further down the bed and drags Craig’s pants down.

He continues staring up at Craig, his eyes a bit crinkled with some sort of mirth, as he licks a long swipe up Craig’s now fully hard cock and then takes him in fully. Craig grins down at him happily and fists a hand in John Paul’s hair. Nothing else could ever be better than this right here, and Craig loves to stare down at John Paul, at his cock disappearing into the wet heat of John Paul’s mouth, and revel in it all. It’s nice when they go slow and take their time with one another and make it last a while, but he loves this sort of quick, dirty, desperate fuck when they just race towards the finish line and try to bring each other off and fast and as hard as possible.

And John Paul is doing his part, picking up pace with his mouth and letting Craig thrust up into him and working his tongue against Craig, allowing spit to form and drool down across Craig’s cock.

“So good,” Craig tells him in a rushed breath. “That feels fucking great.”

John Paul smiles at him around his mouthful and Craig has to throw his head back, can’t watch anymore as John Paul starts to grind his own erection against the bed. A few more moments of John Paul sucking hard enough that Craig can hear him and thrusting up into John Paul’s mouth and John Paul moaning around Craig’s cock and Craig’s squeezing his eyes shut and groaning and clutching at John Paul as he comes.

When John Paul comes a few minutes later, laid back against the bed with Craig’s hand on his cock, he keeps his eyes open and stares, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, at Craig like Craig is something amazing, like he can’t believe they’re here together, even after all this time. 

-

The fear is still there, creeping underneath his skin, and it’s getting harder and harder for Craig to ignore it. 

-

“Feels a bit weird,” John Paul says as he holds his cup of coffee and doesn’t drink at all and stares ahead of him at nothing.

“What does?” Craig asks as he fixes his own cup and comes to sit down on the couch with John Paul.

“No work today,” John Paul tells him with a weird sort of shrug. “It’s the first start of school term in years that I’ve got no class to go to. I’m not a teacher anymore.”

Craig kind of wants to remind him that this was his decision, that he’s doing this for the baby he’s wanted to badly, but it occurs to him that John Paul is giving up a lot for this baby just as Craig is, and maybe he doesn’t really want to any more than Craig does. He’s doing it all because he’s convinced this will help them, and he’s making a rather big sacrifice for the both of them, for the relationship. 

So he pastes on a fake smile and throws his arm around John Paul’s shoulders and reminds him, “Only for a few years.” He’s glad when John Paul doesn’t say anything else about it.

-

“You’re home late,” John Paul says about thirty seconds after Craig walks through the door.

Craig waves him off. “Just stopped to have a few drinks.”

“It’s nearly eight.”

“You’re nagging again.”

John Paul’s mouth goes tight at that, his face grim. “Just wish you’d call at least, is all,” he says, and walks off to the bedroom, shutting the door behind him.

-

As they get into the last months of the pregnancy he finds reasons to work late without totally realizing it and starts keeping a bottle of Jameson in one of his desk drawers. John Paul doesn’t say much when he comes home after 8:00 most nights, and it’s not until Craig stumbles through the door at half past nine one evening to find John Paul sitting with Chloe and staring at what looks like a sonogram picture that it occurs to Craig that he’s trying to avoid this very thing here.

“Craig, look,” John Paul holds out the picture to him, and Craig can only manage a glance at the jumble of lines and curves across the photo that vaguely make out the shape of a head before he’s running for the loo and being sick in the toilet.

John Paul finds him there a few minutes later, sitting on the floor and leaning against the sink with his head in his hands.

“Chloe’s gone,” he tells Craig before sliding down to sit next to him. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Craig replies vaguely even though he’s really not.

“Sounded like you threw up in here.”

“It’s fine, John Paul.” _It’s fine, it’s fine._

“Okay,” John Paul replies quietly. “Want me to get you something to drink? I could put on a brew...”

“No,” Craig tells him, and hears his voice crack on the word, emotion that he can’t figure out stuck thick in his throat.

“D’you want to see the sonogram picture?” John Paul asks, and Craig is nauseous all over again. He shakes his head and doesn’t look up as tears form in his eyes. It feels like he might choke on something and he hasn’t a clue what to say.

They’re both quiet for a while and that familiar frantic thump of his heart is back, loud and heavy and painful and he’s desperate to bolt from the flat and just run and run and keep running.

“Craig,” John Paul breaks the silence after a moment. He reaches over to put a hand on Craig’s knee and it does nothing to calm Craig’s queasiness. “What’s going on?”

“I dunno,” Craig replies into his hands. It’s almost the truth.

“It’s okay to be nervous,” John Paul tells him and starts rubbing a circle against Craig’s knee. “Normal, even. I’m a bit scared about becoming a dad too, you know.”

Craig shakes his head and still won’t look up. “I’m not nervous,” he tells John Paul in a shuddering voice that he doesn’t recognize.

 _It’s not fine_.

“It sort of seems like you are,” John Paul replies. Craig can hear his smile in his voice, and it guts him, but before he can hold it back, he blurts it out.

“I’m not nervous. I don’t want to be a father.”

John Paul’s hand drops from Craig’s knee.

He stops breathing for a moment, waiting for John Paul to answer, and when there’s no response in what feels like an eternity, Craig lifts his head and looks hesitantly at John Paul.

John Paul is stone faced, his eyes narrow and scrutinizing. 

“What do you mean,” he says slowly, “you don’t want to be a father?”

“I – I don’t want to be a father,” Craig repeats, unsure of himself. “Not yet. Maybe not ever – I’m not sure. Maybe someday, just. Not now. It’s too soon, we’re too young, I’m not ready for this yet.”

“Not ready.” John Paul’s expression hasn’t eased a bit, and Craig can’t look at him any longer. He shifts his gaze to the wall opposite them.

“I don’t know – not really, no.” _Fix this, fix this, figure out how to fix this_ , he tells himself, but he’s got no idea how.

John Paul is breathing heavily, audibly now too. Craig can see him out of the corner of his eye, settling both hands on his head and gripping his hair, and it makes Craig feel ill all over again.

“That – that could still just be nerves,” John Paul says, stumbling. “How d’you know it’s not? You’re just panicking, Craig.”

“I _am_ panicking,” Craig replies, more angry than he means and unsure where the anger has come from. “Because this.” He pauses, takes a huge breath, braces himself. He forces himself to look over at John Paul, look him in the eye.

“This is a mistake. We’re making a mistake.”

John Paul shakes his head, immediately dismissing the notion, and squeezes his eyes shut. He must know as Craig does that they’re facing, quite suddenly, their breaking point. It hurts Craig everywhere, just the thought of it, but with an abrupt clarity that feels a bit like the moment just before death, he knows it’s true.

This may be it. They may not be able to come back from this.

“No, it’s not, it’s not,” John Paul replies, still shaking his head. “It’s just nerves, you’re just – ”

“ _Stop_ saying that,” Craig interrupts him sharply.

John Paul’s eyes open and they stare at each other and it’s almost mean, the gaze between them.

“I’m telling you, we’ve made a mistake,” Craig says. The words are coming more easily now, more forceful and confident, achingly terrified as he still is. “We’re making a mistake. I don’t want this and I’m not even sure that you really do either.”

John Paul’s jaw clenches. He looks like he’s nearly vibrating. “You’re telling me this _now_.” 

“I didn’t – I thought it _was_ just nerves, that I’d get over it.” His stomach is in knots. He wants desperately to take John Paul’s hand, just do _something_ to soothe him, but he’s sure he’d be rejected if he tried. “But it’s not. Seeing that photo, it’s just made everything suddenly so… so _real_ , and made me realize that it’s not right.”

“You should’ve said,” John Paul grinds out through sudden tears that have formed. “You could’ve said before, before Chloe got pregnant or going to the clinic, or when I first suggested it, even.”

“I couldn’t,” Craig shakes his head.

“You have had _ample_ time before now, Craig, when the baby’s practically here already!”

“I _couldn’t_ ,” Craig repeats, wanting to bang his fists against something. “You were so excited about this, so certain that this was what you wanted and would be good for us. I couldn’t. I thought you could be right and I couldn’t say no.”

“So you’re just a coward then,” John Paul spits out angrily.

“Hey. I wanted this to work just as much as you did!”

“What, the baby or our relationship?”

“Both!” The anger comes quickly, burning through him and taking up all of the space in his chest so that he can barely feel the fear of losing John Paul, or hurting John Paul, anymore. “You were the one who came up with this grand plan, have a baby to save the relationship. What were you thinking, ay?”

“And you agreed to it!” John Paul shoots back. “Not once did you say that you were scared or unsure or didn’t want to be a dad, not even in all the times we went to the doctor with Chloe, went shopping for baby stuff, talked about – about names and such.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have gone along, but you were the one who started this whole thing.”

“I started it?” John Paul puts his hands against his chest, some exaggerated form of shock that makes Craig want to hit something. “Our relationship wouldn’t have needed saving if it wasn’t as bad as it’d gotten!”

“And what are you saying, that’s my fault?” Craig asks as he pushes himself up off the floor, unable to sit there next to John Paul any longer.

“Perhaps if you’d put in even the _slightest_ effort,” John Paul replies, pushing himself up as well. “Things wouldn’t have gotten as bad as they did.”

“ _Effort_? Effort? You think I wasn’t putting in any effort?”

“You stayed out ‘till all hours practically every night, you still do,” John Paul throws in his face. They’re both pacing around the small room, circling around each other like lions or something, each preparing an attack. “You’d rather go out drinking and partying and messing about with your mates or your coworkers than doing anything else.”

“For fucks sake, I’m twenty-three years old!” Craig fires back. “I don’t want to do much else than have fun and mess about with my mates, and I don’t need you acting like my mum and nagging me about responsibilities and buying houses and having kids and all of that shit. Why’re you in such a rush to be… _old_ and boring and settled down?”

“Staring a family isn’t old and boring, it’s _normal_ , Craig, it’s what normal people do when they grow up. You’re not Peter flippin’ Pan.”

“And I’m not a dad, and I don’t want to be one when I’m barely even out of uni,” Craig says. “And the only reason you want to be one is some screwed up notion that it’ll bring us closer but I _don’t want it_. If I want to have a pint or two or ten with Freddy and Jess, I will!”

John Paul draws his head back and stops pacing, props his hands on his hips. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

“What’s what this is about?” Craig asks carefully, though he’s pretty sure he knows where this is going.

“Jess,” John Paul spits out. “You and Jess, that’s what this is all about.”

“Christ, not this again.”

“Yes, this again, because that’s all it ever is with you, Craig!” John Paul says, pointing an angry finger in his direction. “You run away from your problems and your responsibilities and you hide behind women rather than face up to your fears. Though why you _still_ can’t deal with being gay is beyond me.”

“That’s not what this is.” 

“You hate that you’re gay, you hate that you’re in love with me, and you hate that you’ll be a gay _dad_ ,” John Paul goes on as if he’s having a conversation with himself, like he doesn’t even need Craig’s input here.

“You’re wrong, and you know what, I think you hide behind this old fucking argument.”

“What?”

Craig glares him down, unwilling to back off now that they’ve got this started, even though he knows, somewhere way in the back of his mind, that they’re ruining everything beyond repair. 

“You don’t want to admit you made a mistake with this baby so you’re hiding behind your own insecurities and jealousy.”

“I’m not insecure,” John Paul says with a scoffing sort of laugh.

“Yes you are, you always have been.” It’s like they’ve set fire to everything and now they’re just throwing more wood on it, desperate to destroy everything. “You’re jealous of any girl I talk to, so scared that I’m going to leave you and go running back to women. You just make these things up in your head.”

John Paul shakes his head, angry, glaring at Craig like he barely recognizes Craig there in front of him, which is fair. Craig barely recognizes either one of them right now.

“Considering how our relationship started, is it any shock that I expect you’ll go running back to women sooner or later?”

Craig breathes heavily, angry and tight and still with the desperate urge to punch something. “You really believe that even now, even after all these years? I was with Sarah before anything ever happened between you and me.”

“Yeah, and you cheated on her,” John Paul says, sounding desperate and mean.

Craig huffs. “You want to throw that in my face, fine. Shall I bring up Kieron then? You slept with me while you were still with him, as I recall.”

And it’s such a low blow, Craig knows it, but he means for it to hurt as much as he’s sure it does, considering how John Paul whirls on him and gets up close into Craig’s face.

“Don’t you _dare_ talk about him that way!” John Paul shouts, and maybe Craig will feel badly about this later, but he’s taking some sick sort of pleasure in making John Paul as angry and hurt as Craig feels. “That was _totally_ different.”

“No it wasn’t,” Craig shouts back, trying to wound. “You’re just as willing to throw everything else aside for what you want.”

“Shut up,” John Paul tells him, his voice dangerously low, brutally furious.

Craig won’t stop now, though, some part of him insisting on ruining this down to the last drop. “Face it, John Paul, you’re selfish and so wrapped up in what you want, you’ll throw everything else away to get it. So now you’re jealous and you’re scared and you’re throwing away our whole relationship just to keep hold of me or something and you don’t even realize it.”

“That’s not true,” John Paul shakes his head, and the hurt on his face crushes Craig’s chest, so he turns away so he won’t see it. 

“You wanted this baby so bad, fine,” Craig says, his voice dropped down close to a whisper as his hands clench and unclench in fists. “You can have it without me.”

He leaves without a glance back, just grabs his coat and storms out of the flat and keeps walking until the sun rises the next day.

-

“Okay,” John Paul says first thing when Craig walks through the door the next day after spending most of the day falling asleep at his desk at work. “Okay, we won’t go through with it.”

“What?” Craig asks, blindsided and tired and just so worn out.

“Chloe. The baby.” John Paul comes over and takes Craig’s hands before Craig can even get his coat off. Craig wants to pull away, but John Paul holds on. “I rang her this morning and – well, it was pretty bad, but I told her. I told her we wanted out of this all, that we don’t want it.”

“You what?”

“I told her we couldn’t take the baby.”

“John Paul,” Craig sighs, pulling away and turning his back to John Paul, rubbing at his forehead.

“I mean, it’s – it’s a _baby_ , I don’t know…” John Paul is rambling a bit, back to that frantic sort of pace. 

Desperation.

“But she’ll figure it out,” he continues. “She’ll have to figure it out, and we’ll just – we can fix this, I know we can.”

Craig swallows roughly and runs both hands through his hair. His chest is aching.

“I don’t know that we can,” he says quietly.

“No, no, no,” John Paul replies immediately. “We can, really, we’ll work harder at it, we’ll – counseling, maybe, we could try – ”

“No,” Craig tells him, and turns around. He wants to look John Paul in the eye, wants to be able to see him clearly as he says this, but he can’t, quite, so he stares instead at John Paul’s knees. “I don’t even know what working harder means. What else can we do? We’ve ruined it all.”

“Why? Why are you saying that? It can’t be true.” John Paul shakes his head and grabs Craig by the arms. His grip is so tight even the touch feels desperate. “It can’t, because I love you, Craig. You’re the only person in the world I could ever want.”

Craig has to close his eyes. He hates to cry, especially in front of other people, but this is hurting so much. His whole body is aching with it now, down to the tips of his fingers that itch with the desperate urge to reach out and touch John Paul, brush his cheek or his arms or spread across his back, but he can’t do any of it.

It’s the worst pain he’s felt, excusing Steph’s death. Worse than that last conversation when he left Sarah, worse than leaving John Paul at the airport all those years ago. But he has to.

He has to.

He keeps his eyes closed as he says, “I can’t keep having this same fight over and over. Feels like we’ve been going round it for ages.”

“I don’t want to fight anymore either,” John Paul tells him softly.

Craig takes a long breath, steels himself, opens his eyes. “That’s why we have to end it.”

“No,” John Paul says quickly. “No, we don’t, we don’t, we – ”

But Craig is already pulling himself away, heading for the bedroom in search of a bag. John Paul follows after him and Craig won’t let himself look back at him again.

He pulls a dufflebag out from under the bed and starts pulling out clothes from the closet at random – a few pairs of jeans, some pants and socks, a couple of shirts – and shoves them into the bag without paying much attention.

“What are you doing?” John Paul asks, sounding frantic, like he knows just what Craig is doing. “Stop, don’t do this, don’t just walk out of here.

If he looks up at John Paul now he’s sure he won’t be able to leave.

So he brushes past John Paul towards the front door keeping a white-knuckled grip on the bag.

“Craig, stop, please!” John Paul shouts, desperate. 

“I have to,” Craig says quietly when he reaches the door. “Don’t you get it? We have to end it now. There’s nothing left to fix.”

 _I love you_ , he wants to say. _I love you, I love you, I love you more than anything,_ but he can’t keep on like this. Everything is misery between them and he has to get out. His feet start moving faster, picking up the pace, needing to be away, _away_ from here. When he gets down to the street he spots a cab before John Paul has managed to follow him out of the flat.

But John Paul is there at the bus station by the time Craig has purchased his ticket – he’s not even sure where it’s to, just the first bus that was leaving the station and it doesn’t matter anyway – and chases after Craig once Craig is on the bus. 

“Craig, don’t, don’t do this!” John Paul shouts at him from outside of the bus. “Please don’t do this!”

He puts his head down in his hands, wishes he could block out the pleas. He’s almost certain he can actually feel his heart breaking.

Finally, mercifully, the bus pulls away from the station and John Paul’s voice is gone. Craig misses it immediately.

“Was it a bad breakup, then?” the woman sitting next to him asks, an older woman with a silly hat with fake flowers atop her head. Craig nods and lets a couple of tears fall before choking the rest back. She pats his shoulder gently and doesn’t say anything else.

-

He rides all the way down to Cork, then gets on another bus along the coast and then another and eventually ends up in Killarney, rents a room at an inn and ends up staying there through Christmas and New Year’s. He takes every bit of vacation from work that he can and spends the days mostly locked up in his room, ignoring the world. It feels as if someone’s died. Or like his life is over.

He doesn’t answer his mobile except to tell Jess and James that he’s alive and to wish his mum a happy Christmas in a bright and cheerful voice, tell her that yeah, things are find round here, John Paul’s just at the shop getting them a turkey for dinner because they forgot to go shopping earlier and nods along, humming his agreement when his mum laughs at him, “Oh you two, just so wrapped up in one another you‘ll miss the whole world going on around you.”

John Paul calls, again and again and again, until Craig gives up torturing himself and shuts his mobile off.

-

He comes back home a few days after New Year’s Day and prepares himself for another row, another torturous, painful parting as they separate their things and work out who’ll stay in the flat.

He sighs heavily at the door, leans his head against it for a moment, wishing he could delay this a bit more. He’s desperate to see John Paul, to hear his voice, and terrified that as soon as he does he won’t ever be able to leave again, that they’ll be right back to where they were because neither one is strong enough to really end it.

Another sigh, and he turns the key in the lock and pushes the door open.

The flat is empty.

A brief search turns up some of John Paul’s clothes missing, his toothbrush gone from the counter beside the sink, the gloves he’s always forgetting by the front door absent for once.

There’s a note pinned to the refrigerator in John Paul’s handwriting. Craig takes a breath and steps closer to read it.

_I’m not coming back._

**-end-**


End file.
